I just built a v0.4.5 router with HD boot and improved HW specs such as a 600 MHz Celeron with 256 Mb memory to replace my old (K6 with 64 Mb memory), floppy based v0.3.4 router.

One issue I noticed is that the HD doesn't stay off -- it spins down after the timeout period, but it's usually back up in less than 5 - 10 minutes. I presume this happens because some kind of log is written onto the HD. Is it possible to write logs onto a ram drive instead (should have plenty of space) and then copy those logs into the HD once a day?

I agree that you are MUCH better off leaving the drive spinning versus letting it spin down, it will run longer. Although it does matter what type of drive you are using. In my own machines I use as slow a drive as possible and 7200 rpm drives are not optimal for router types of application.

However to address your question, if you disable logging to the hard drive it should stop firing up the drive. If you still want to keep a copy of the logs you can configure it to email them to another computer. Just disable saving the logs and enable the email the email client. During the email configuration it will ask about sending the logs.

If you are afraid that you might make a mistake. The chances are high that you will never learn anything.

I guess I have to disagree with both of you on the HD -- methinks at this point i time (no extra stuff, just a plain, low traffic Ethernet router) keeping the HD off and spinning it up once a day, or perhaps even just once a week is much better than keeping it on all the time.

I heat with electricity and by the October/November time frame the router will be in my bedroom, and I don't want to hear the constantly spinning HD. (aside from the HD, the router is essentially inaudible unless I'm right next to it)

Do I need to modify and recompile the executables to be able to route the logs into a RAM drive, or is it possible to do it by modifying just some of the scripts? I downloaded zipslack last week, and I'm hoping to be able to compile Freesco within a couple of days. And I know that I can edit and modify the scripts easily, although they can be a bit (?!) cryptic and terse at times.

I have been using one of these since 2008 in my Freesco box. Currently a Dell Pentium III. Ext2 install to the "hard disk", which is this Compact Flash card. Silence. I even pulled the fan from the CPU and put it on a temp sensor so it rarely spins up. Basically silent box.

I am about to swap the old 1GB card out to put a new one in. Eight years running sitting there chugging away on the Flash card. It is starting to spit errors now and begging for a fsck, but that is certainly not a fault of the converter. That could be power spike related, or just the card finally wearing out after 8 years of logs and general use

If this is the case, then the absolute BEST solution is to enable the ram drive and then enable "Run from ram" option. At that point the hard drive will never spin other than to boot. I have used this option for a number of routers and print servers and it works very well. It also makes them sort of bullet proof for power outages along with just power cycling them.

With regards to changing scripts, it does not require Zipslack. All you need is the FREESCO OS and you can easily modify the ramdisk without recompiling anything. But the scripting is extremely cryptic and finding all of the components of a single command can be challenging at best for anyone who did not design it and modified them repeatedly over the span of about 14 years.

If you are afraid that you might make a mistake. The chances are high that you will never learn anything.

How do I modify the ramdisk to be bigger? I enabled "Read disk only once", but copying failed at some point and the router would not work. I tried to specify 32 during setup, but that wasn't enough. I have enough RAM for up to 192 meg RAM drive, but I'd probably start at 64, and increase if it's needed.

In your original download of FREESCO there are extra larger types of ram drives included. Such as 32 64 and 128 sized ramdrives. Even through this is a memory only system it still requires the actual file to be copied onto the drive and the size you want. There are instructions included with the file on how to do it. To recover from miss configuring the system just start in setup mode.

If you are afraid that you might make a mistake. The chances are high that you will never learn anything.